The tank is half-empty
- John Quinn
- Feb 13, 2024
- 3 min read
We're in end times and it's starting to affect my mood
I try my hardest to be a glass half-full sort of person. However, when it comes to the strange hobby that is the obsession of the motor-car, the cynic buried inside me feels we are nearing the end.
I've bemoaned about this a few times on my shite podcast on more than one occasion and even relics like Clarkson were calling the pallbearers on the car as we know it 12-years-ago.
I remember at the time, in places like the Pistonheads forum, people laughing it off and saying that Clarkson was being dramatic. Partly, they were right, but, as is often the case, through his hyperbole, he was predicting a not too distant future.
A future that I now think we are very much entering.
Ok, V12s aren't quite dead yet. Ferrari still make a plethora of twelve-cylinder models and Lamborghini just released their latest, dozen-piston'd supercar just late last year. There are a smattering of others, but they are all restricted to the low-volume, high-end manufacturers, anyone making more than a few thousand cars a year have culled their big-capacity engines.
This is just the beginning too. 2035 is all but a decade away and this is when the production of internal combustion engine cars is slated to be banned across Europe.
There is chatter as to how rigid that date will actually be and there might be some discrepancies here and there, but the wheels are already in motion by some big players to prepare for this date and cull manufacture of ICE engines from their repertoire. BMW for one, have already stopped producing engines in Munich.
Why does this matter? Well, the reason many of us car-lovers are enamoured with cars is because of the internal-combustion-engine. In the same way mechanical watches are so valuable and collectible, why instrumental music still thrives in a world of electronics, we love the tangible and harmonious way the ICE works.
Then there's the sounds and the smells and the way they deliver the propulsion, all things the future is going to lack.
I don't want to come across as a Luddite. I'm not anti-EV, but they just don't stir the senses. They are white goods. There is little to differentiate one from the other. Nothing that excites.
One recent EV launch, was the Polestar 4, an all-electric, coupe SUV (which is a horrible collection words). Due to media embargoes, all the 'first-look' reviews were published at the same time in a big hullabaloo. I watched one video and halfway through, I realised I just didn't care.
It's a handsome looking car and there are plenty of ICE cars I would own purely on aesthetics, but when the different colours of mood-lighting for the interior became a focal point in the review of the Polestar, the sadness washed over me.
I won't go into a long ramble about the pros and cons of both EVs and ICE when it comes to the environment. Anyone reading this will know the ins-and-outs of that debate. It's just a shame we're being ushered, somewhat blindly, into one solution when there is a place for all.
I guess I'm saddened that I no longer get the childlike excitement about the car-world I once did. Sure, that's part of getting older, but hobbies are supposed to be the part of life that ground you to that inner child that's inside us all. It's why hobbies are important.
It's strange for a hobby to appear finite and sure I have other passions, but nothing has been as long-lived, as joyful and as organic in my life as the love of the car.
Sure, what currently exists will continue to do so for many years to come and there is over a century's worth of history to get lost in, but as the end comes closer, indulging in it becomes more restrictive, both financially (car prices, synthetic fuel) and due to scarcity (only the finer things will survive).
Ok, I'm probably being a bit Clarkson in 2009, getting a bit ahead of reality, but it's an issue that does lament in my mind.
I guess I need to go glass half full and go out and buy an e60 M5.
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